


if i sing hallelujah

by sapphea



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:08:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphea/pseuds/sapphea
Summary: There’s something to sunsets seen from a rooftop.





	if i sing hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote 80% of this abt a year ago and @srididdledeedee convinced me to post it, so here it is
> 
> title from "belief" by alexander sage oyen bc this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxTwlmuoy2w ) ruined my life

_ if i sing hallelujah _

_ right on up to ya _

_ would your angles even give a damn? _

_ would you give a damn? _

__

There’s something to sunsets seen from a rooftop. They’re somehow redder, bruise-like, more summery than those seen from street level. But there’s a breathless quality to them, too, like they suck the air from the top of the atmosphere and spread specks of stars in its place. The air below is softer, more cloudy, everyone’s breath pushed up against one another and muffled as if under a blanket. Up here it’s still, and clear, and aching.

David’s been up here with Jack a couple of times, and he’s come to understand how addicting the tall twilight air can be. But it’s dangerous. Because while the air is aching-clear and still, it holds an edge, high-altitude sharp. If you move the wrong way, you can cut yourself open. Movement happens reluctantly.

Like Jack. Restless Jack Kelly, caffeine in human form Jack Kelly, physically-couldn’t-sit-still-if-his-life-depended-on-it Jack Kelly, sitting at the edge of the roof with his feet dangling in the thick light below. Winds toys at his hair, and from where David’s sitting the sunlight blurs his facial expression, but otherwise he seems frozen in time. Jack stares at the sun, maybe going blind. David stares at Jack, maybe going blind as well. 

David feels like he’s bleeding across the sky.

 

City skies aren’t beautiful. Half of it’s blocked by steel and concrete, the other half clogged with smoke and life and dirt. Sometimes David wonders if the sky has actually been scraped up by buildings-- even on clear blue days there’s something broken about it, scarred. 

Breaks and scars aren’t beautiful. David’s been on field trips to art museums, he’s seen the way the paint blends smoothly into itself, seen the gold and the green of nature and how the softness of people is lovingly rendered. Those are artworks, masterpieces because they’re flat, and calm, and quiet. His teacher talked about the way that some people were painted mid-motion, how emotional they were, how alive, but all David saw was their silence. 

If Jack weren’t Jack, he’d look a little like those paintings now. Like he’s pressed up against glass between one breath and the next, heart beating into canvas. Beautiful. But breaks and scars aren’t beautiful. 

Jack’s got scars like the night’s got constellations. The sun’s moved marginally so David can make out the one by his ear, the one slashing through his eyebrow. His eyes want to trace where he knows others lay-- sluggishly crawling across a hipbone, darting across broad shoulders, ripping into his knee-- but his eyes also don’t really want to leave Jack’s face, and it’s always been easy for David to rest his gaze there. Maybe he’ll start wearing grooves with it, or maybe he’s already done it. Maybe he’ll get to leave a mark on Jack Kelly. 

 

But marks and blemishes aren’t beautiful.

But Jack is anyway.

Jack’s sunset-beautiful, breathless and sharp and bruise-purple-red. When he hurts he bleeds streaks across the stars, and he burns. He’s--

He’s looking at David, now, who’s looking at him. A breeze picks at Jack’s hair again but the space between them stands still.

“Whatcha doin’, Dave?” asks Jack, almost casual, nearly hoarse. Who knows how long they’ve been sitting here in silence.

“Painting you with my eyes,” he replies. “With words.”

And the sun sets again in Jack’s eyes just then, flares gold. “Do I make a pretty picture?”

_ Pretty dumb, that’s for sure _ is the reply on the tip of his tongue, but David swallows it. “You’re too much to be a picture,” is what comes out, true and all the more painful for it. “You can’t be captured in just two dimensions.”

“That sounds like a confession,” Jack says, like the warning it is. David knows they’re on the edge of this, but the air is sharp in his lungs and the light is fading and Jack is  _ beautiful _ .

“Maybe it is,” he says. 

 

Jack’s got a scar on his bottom lip, streaking like a shooting star. It tastes like a promise.


End file.
